Proposed specs, and ?s

[Nemesis3]

Directron
------------------------------
Lian Li PC-69 99.99
Arctic Silver III 7.99
Antec True550 550Watt Silence Power Supply: 94.99

Does the "silenced" make any difference especially since I will probably end up with a noisy HSFU and are there diadvantages with going with silenced version? Shortened fan life etc or less cooling for PSU?

Newegg
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Creative Labs Sound Blaster Audigy 2 - OEM BULK - $78.00
SONY 1.44MB $7.50
Asus A7N8X Deluxe Retail- $138.00
Athlon XP 2800+ = $ 340
2 "3 connector" round cables= 15.00
3 X Corsair XMS C2 PC-3200 CMX512-3200C2PT Model#: CMX512-3200C2PT 134.00 x3= $402

With the 3500 models and "Extreme" and Hyper Z Twin x 32MX8 64MX64 .. then reading if two slot are occupied you get x performance but not if 3 etc for this mobo. Not really following all of that. How does this rams stack up? If not now at some point I had planned at populating all 3 slots for 1.5 GB will this result in reduced speed and is anyone runnning this mobo with three slots populated?

Any extra cpu overhead for using the on-board lan or diffrence in quality performance cpu overhead with the two different onboard chipsets?

Already Have:
WD1200JB
WD2000JB
Sony DRU500AX
LiteOn 52x24x52

Adding Later:
ATI 9900 or Nv35 maybe
maybe try raidng two raptors to make use of serial Ata raid on the mobo

HD coolers necessary or extra cooling?
Recomendations on a good HSFU?
Recommendations on a quality ATA controller card as I will end up with 2 hard drives, maybe 4 if I use the serial raid, and 3 optical drives as you need one for cd-r/w one for dvd-rw and one for ripping dvd.

Thanks for the input.

 

[Elcs]

I do believe that Silent power supplies use better heatsink designs to allow air to cool them more efficiciently therefore a slow fan in a well-made ps might be on par with a loud fan in a poor psu.

I doubt a silenced PSU with quality such as Antecs should give you any problems.

HDD cooling is not worth it unless you are using the fast SCSI drives although, with the new 10k rpm SATA drives, it may be different.

Corsair XMS is a good choice albeit expensive in my opinion. If you change your mind about upgrading to 1.5 Gb with 3 slots full, Id suggest that you get TwinX DDR from Corsair. They come in packs of 2 sticks of DDR which should overclock to about the same maximum.

Since you think you will get a noisy HSF, I'll suggest the quiet ones. Id recommend a Thermalright SK-7 or SLK-800 with an 80mm YS Tech Adjustable fan or an SLK-900 with someone elses choice of 92mm fan.

This should provide flexibility on noise and cooling.

You may wish to consider the ABIT NF7-S motherboard. Just give it a thought.

Hope this helps.

 

[Nemesis3]

Do you know if the silenced version is noti

>Corsair XMS is a good choice albeit expensive in my opinion. If you change your mind about upgrading to 1.5 Gb with 3 slots full, Id >suggest that you get TwinX DDR from Corsair. They come in packs of 2 sticks of DDR which should overclock to about the same >maximum.

So as far as ?stock speed? the XMS outperforms the TwinX but overclocked the TwinX performs the same? In theory does this mean the XMS overclocks even better? I am guessing there is a reason you mentioned if I don?t decide to go the 1.5GB route with Twin X? I seem to be behind the times of what is going on with all the flavors of ram. What the deal with the 32MX8 vs. 64MX64? Doing a search for Corsair XMS 3200 over at newegg seems to bring up tons of identically yet separate items. Any reason to get the 3500? I am still not sure what the performance loss you take populating the third slot on nforce mobos is.

>Since you think you will get a noisy HSF, I'll suggest the quiet ones. Id recommend a Thermalright SK-7 or SLK-800 with an 80mm YS >Tech Adjustable fan or an SLK-900 with someone elses choice of 92mm fan.
Will definitely check both out if they do as good as job keeping cpu cool and are quiet all the better by me

>You may wish to consider the ABIT NF7-S motherboard. Just give it a thought.
Will do and read some reviews in the process.

 

[stncttr908]

I'd have to say that the nvidia soundstorm integrated into that board will be plenty good enough. You don't need to sink the extra on the Audigy 2. Also, you should only get 2 sticks to utilize the Dual DDR feature. You don't need more than 1GB of mem, unless you plan to run Photoshop, 3D Studio Max, etc all at the same time and I somehow doubt that. Also, are you getting the Barton 2800+? If you are, get the 2500+ instead and save some bucks. If you're not even going to get the Barton core, get a 2100+ revision B instead and save a lot of money and you won't be sacraficing a lot of performance, and you'll get a great overclocker.

 

[isaacmacdonald]

The antec "quiet" PSU's are not very quiet. I've owned several generations of their 350 watt quiet + whisper products and they're consistently quieter, but are still quite noticeable.

In contrast, Noisecontrol's Modded Antecs are quiet as hell. They use standard antec two fan PSU's and install 80mm papst 12db fans. Naturally, the airflow is reduced and there is a bit more heat, but it's worth it for peace and quiet.

 

[Nemesis3]

>I'd have to say that the nvidia soundstorm integrated into that board will be plenty good enoughYou don't need to sink the extra on >the Audigy 2.

I will probably go with onboard sound. The thread indicating cpu utilization was less and sound quality is as good pushes me this way too. Minus a pci card also equals better air flow and less voltage being drawn for it which equals less heat.

>Also, you should only get 2 sticks to utilize the Dual DDR feature.
Hrm is there that much of a performance gain using only two sticks? I remember a thread on this and a few people were arguing the more ram would mean better performance. Which 2 sticks would you recommend?

>Also, are you getting the Barton 2800+? If you are, get the 2500+ instead and save some bucks. If you're not even going to get the Barton core, get a >2100+ revision B instead and save a lot of money and you won't be sacraficing a lot of performance, and you'll get a great overclocker.
No Barton here. I didn't care much for their performance in the anandtech review. I end up selling my systems and investing cash in a new machine and people will buy the name 2800+ better.

 

[DCoke]

Another vote for leaving off Audigy 2 for onboard sound. Don't get the SLK-900 as I believe the mobo you are looking at and it don't get along well.

I can't really recommend a good HSFU and the ram questions are something I am trying to find out as well.

 

[Izdaari]

Yeah, just use the onboard sound with that mobo. It's as good as the Audigy2 if you use it with digital speakers.

The performance gain from using the dual DDR channel is about 5% in memory performance, which of course is less in overall performance. If you can even notice it, you're more of a benchmarking geek than I am.

I can't imagine what performance benefit you'd hope to gain by having an SATA RAID and an ATA RAID. Sounds like an expense and complication with no benefit.

Maybe a Thermaltake Volcano 11? That'd be enough cooling except for heavy overclocking.

Sounds like a nice system though.

 

[Nemesis3]

>I can't imagine what performance benefit you'd hope to gain by having an SATA RAID and an ATA RAID. Sounds like an expense and complication >with no benefit.
"Recommendations on a quality ATA controller card as I will end up with 2 hard drives, maybe 4 if I use the serial raid, and 3 optical drives as you need one for cd-r/w one for dvd-rw and one for ripping dvd."
The controller card I meant wasn't raid just somewhere to put one of my optical drives as for now I still need 3.

>Sounds like a nice system though.
Thanks, trying to make it one at least. Always best to get input on any new system on the forums as someone here usually has already built it at least 5 times and knows the ins and outs and incompatibilities backwards and forwards.

So Thermaltake Volcano 11,SK-7, and SLK-800 for HSFU so far?

Any more input on ram?

 

[DCoke]

I am basically considering building the same system and don't see a reason to start a seperate thread.

Your HSFU considerations might be null as with the 2800+ from newegg you have a choice of two choices:
TAISOL Processor fan CGK760172
Dynatron DC1206BM-L/610-P-CU

I don't know anything about either and don't think they would be very competitive with say the slk-800.
You are forced to buy either one of these two if you get your 2800+ because "The reason being is that AMD has not released this processor fully and has struck up a deal with NewEgg." Since you are considering the Asus A7N8X Deluxe that is not a problem since you are also required to get your mobo from newegg and it is one of the few they list as compatible.

I have been trying to read up on the ram as well and thinking of going with Corsair as well but as two which two sticks haven't figured that one out yet.

 

[DCoke]

Update: Bad news. Newegg is now only offering "REFURBISHED" XP 2800+s and are out of stock of nonrefurbished models. Anyone have any processor retailers they recommend as strongly as newegg?

 

[Nemesis3]

>Update: Bad news. Newegg is now only offering "REFURBISHED" XP 2800+s and are out of stock of nonrefurbished models. Anyone >have any processor retailers they recommend as strongly as newegg?

Frown. I don't think there are many places anyone would rank up their with newegg. Directron is sold out of 2800+.
Never heard of those specific HSFU either. As for ram maybe some of the people with the nf2 boards will weigh in.

 

[Nemesis3]

Heh just noticed that at:
https://aac.avnet.com/AMDstore/index.jsp
2800s are only $266 which is 74$ less than what newegg was selling htem for earlier today and $96 less than what anand's Weekly CPU & Memory had them listed for last. It is 11$ higher than newegg is offering refurbed for. Hrm sudden price drop?

 

[Nemesis3]

Usually threads aren't this dead on weekends. After looking back over anand's review I am considering the 3000+ as though I seem to recall reading a bad review(can only read so many before brain sizzles) they performed well.